Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Even in the absence of an Activities Committee (common in our church congregations), the Tianjin branch manages to throw quite a party in the backyard of one of our members' homes, and true to the Asian in each of us, this mid-March celebration was an all-you-can-eat buffet, complete with barbecue burgers and a lifetime supply of desserts. Our purpose was three-fold: enjoying the bit of the nice weather sneaking into Tianjin at that time, bidding farewell to our beloved Emily and Chris Hardy (who shortly afterward returned to the US), and raising funds for an upcoming youth conference in Shanghai by selling homemade treats.

I was unofficially in charge of the bake sale and thought we could just charge a few coins for each item and call it good. The idea of an auction arose, and I tried to coerce Kyle into being our auctioneer, but thankfully there was no need-- we had a legitimately licensed Canadian auctioneer in our midst! Thanks to Merlin Olsen's tongue twisting, pocketbook-luring techniques, a picnic table of home baked goodies raised $900 for our youth! Not bad for a crowd of twenty or so. I had the crucial task of tallying auction sales by recording how much each type of cookie sold for and how many each family was purchasing-- that third grade math sure came in handy! The auction really was riotous fun, especially trying to explain auction rules in three languages.

Ellie and her toddler minions, plotting who knows what sort of shenanigans-- don't be deceived by their innocuous expressions.

As if the cookies, cakes, and candies weren't enough, we pumped the kids full of more sugar with a three-minute Easter egg hunt in the living room. In a outbreak of charity uncharacteristic of toddlers, here Xixi is actually offering one of her eggs to Ellie.

After everyone else had gone home, our friends from Kyle's work, the Whites, stayed late with us at Chris and Emily's discussing all things intellectual, from population control policies to child disciplinary methods to the advantages of communalist vs. individualist societies to the purpose of life, etc. Plenty of heated debate, but also heated agreement.